1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to power management and more particularly to a method and apparatus to reduce the power consumption of portable devices to increase battery life by turning off power to at least a subset of memory associated with the portable devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable electronic devices rely on batteries to provide the necessary power for the operation of the device. Consumers using the portable devices want to be able to use the devices for longer time periods in between having to recharge the batteries. As such, there is a continual effort to increase battery performance and to perform the operations in more energy efficient ways as the applications performed by the devices become more sophisticated and in some cases require more power. For example, some portable devices are configured to go into a sleep mode when they are inactive after certain time periods, such as laptop computers. Additionally, the clock speed can be driven down during these sleep modes to further reduce power consumption.
However, the power saving modes currently in use are active modes. That is, the power saving modes do not actually shut the component off. Instead, the power saving modes put the component into a sleep mode. Although the sleep modes may reduce the power used, the devices are still active in the sleep mode. Accordingly, the devices are still consuming power at a reduced consumption rate.
As a result, there is a need to solve the problems of the prior art to provide a method and apparatus for reducing the power consumption of battery operated computer electronic devices so that that battery life can be extended by terminating power to certain components.